The Abomination of Yirn Monastary

Full Description
The Abomination of the Yirn Monastary is a golem created by a pair of sorcerous brothers. Standing 13 feet tall and composed primarily of yak bones and cured pelts, the Abomination was quickly tagged with the humorous sobriquet of the 'Yak-Jak' from the Yirnian word for golem, jhakk, shortened. The superstructure of the Yak-Jak is built of scavenged yak bones. Indeed, the thing's horrible posture comes from the fact that the younger brother reconfigured the quadrupedal yak skeleton to stand as a biped. The joints are held together with cured and dried leather thongs, again made from yak tendons and hide. To give the golem more durablity the bulk of the limbs were filled out with bundles of reeds and smaller pieces of lumber.

The torso and the joints required some sort of filling as well, and there was only one thing that the brothers could come up with to use. Roughly 1/3rd of the Yak-Jak's weight is composed of sacks of yak feces. A pliable substance, it was suitable to cover the joints as well as decomposition keeping the leather thongs from drying out and breaking. Finally, the entire body, bundles of twigs and sacks of crap and all were sewn together inside a hodge-podge of yak hides. Given that neither brother was a hunter, or well off, these hide pieces were left-overs that the tanner could not use, or didn't feel like going through the effort of curing.

The final addition came in the form of the yak's eyes. Mismatched, the golem has one scavenged glass eye made for a wealthy human merchant, and an unrecognized Thrar Stone for the other. With one cracked green glass eye that rattles in the socket, and a mellow brown orb that is almost too large for the socket, the yak-jak has a skewed perception of the world.

History
Being a remote and somewhat desolate mountain community, the Yirn Monastary was normally a place of peace and solitude. This changed after gold was found in some of the mountains. The resultant rush of people into the region caused a major problem. The Monastary was content to be left alone while the prospectors burrowed into the cold and fruitless earth. The prospectors, especially those who came at the behest of the land's claiming ruler expected the monks to put them up in suitably luxurious fashion.

When they didnt find the silk pillows and ribbons of butter melting on casaba cakes, they resorted to less civilized means. Many of the monastary buildings were looted. Furniture was stolen or burned, tapestries were ripped down and the pantries and larders were emptied of almost everything by the hungry intruders. This was the situation that the brothers Ytrran and Astin found themselves in.

The Solution
The duo had an idea to create a golem like creature from a manuscript that had been found among the library scrolls. While Yttran practiced the elaborate conjurations, chants and somantic gestures required to animate the golem, Astin secured the corpse of a yak to fashion the body from, as well as the glass eye of a recently deceased merchant and a strange brown stone lifted from the vault of the monastary. This work took roughly a week, during which the brothers had to contend with increasing hunger as well as two more raids from hungry and angry prospectors who suspected the monks of having hidden food stores.

The Defender of the Yirn Monastary
The brothers completed their work and soon the golem, the yak-jak was animated. It stared at the world through it's strange eyes, one taken from a dishonest man knived over a bad deal and the other grown in the bole of a millinial tree. Ytrran smiled gravely, as he was exhausted from the magical incantations while Astin gave a whoop of delight. Slightly confused, the yak-jak looked to it's creators for it's purpose. Ytrran spoke calmly that the golem was to protect the monastary from interlopers, those who would loot and burn more while they tunneled into the mountains like so many maggots on a corpse.

It was not long until the creation faced it's first challenge. A band of marauders, no longer content to dig but rather stealing from the other diggers came to the monastary grounds with murder on their minds. The hulking yak-jak met them and with a high pitched ululating cry was upon them. Their weapons were of little use against the thing and in the end all but two were slain, and those two would be lame for the rest of their days.

The Rebuke
The Master of the Monastary did not praise the brothers for their creation and defence of the grounds, instead he chided them for abusing sorcery, creating an abomination, and causing the deaths of several souls. Shocked, the brothers were cast out of the monastary and the yak-jak was summoned to be destroyed.

Complications Arise
Yet the yak-jak was no ordinary creation, the essence of the thrar stone in it's skull gave rise to a growing sentience. As the thing came at the call of the monks, it saw that its creators were gone and looked to the master monk and knew that it's end was at hand. Rather than standing as a dumb beast should, the golem shrieked and cast about wildly, knocking monks to the ground and leaving the master monk unconscious and bleeding. Lacking new orders from it's creator, the golem fled into the wilds.

The Realm of the Abomination
The fates of Yttran and Astin are lost, but the golem remained following it's last order. It will protect the monastary until it or the monastary is destroyed, but it will never venture close to the place as it fears the monks there will cause it harm or will try to unmake it with magic. The golem moves silently through the alpine heights, watching all who come close to the monastary, and if it senses ill will, it will begin to hinder the interlopers and resort to phyical violence when opportunity favors it. Those who wear the symbols of the monastary are safe from it's wrath.

Combating the abomination is a challenge as it will begin an attack with hurled boulders of 50 to 200 pounds in weight. It will throw these missles at obvious spellcasters first, then mounted foes. The golem fears magic and oddly enough, horses. After a toss, it will evade persuit and hide. After several tosses, it will stalk until nightfall and then pounce into the middle of the camp shrieking for all it's worth, stomping on sleeping bags, kicking firepiles onto those close to them, and laying about with eight foot lengths of wood. Children, women, and holy men are generally safe from this assault in that order.

The Lair of the Abomination
Those not slain, but knocked unconscious are carried back to the creature's adopted lair, a small cave higher in the mountains. Once they wake up, they will find a ramshackle collection of wood, items taken from the slain, and anything else that caught the golem's magpie attention. Underneath is a sense of sadness, as those who perished have been set up as they would have in life and when the golem returns, it tries to communicate with them. It should not be hard to discern that the golem has rudimentary intelligence, and it is now brutally lonely and would like nothing more than to find it's creators again.

Plot Hooks